


The Seduction of Art

by anthean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Genre: M/M, Mysterious Ritual Object that's definitely not a space dildo, tacky Lysatran souvenirs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 23:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15012125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: In theory: Thrawn analyzes the martial capabilities of the Lysatran people based on objects his aide brings back from shore leaveIn practice: Eli trolls the HELL out of Thrawn





	The Seduction of Art

“Commander Vanto,” Thrawn said as the doors to his quarters swished shut behind him. “Welcome back. I trust your visit to Lysatra went smoothly?”

Vanto, perched on the chair across from Thrawn’s desk, rose to his feet. “Very smoothly, sir,” he said. Thrawn didn’t really need the confirmation. Vanto’s skin was a shade darker than usual, courtesy of the Lysatran sun, and he’d lost some of the tension that had settled around his neck and mouth in the past few weeks. He looked...relaxed. Happy.

“I’m glad to hear it, and glad that you have returned,” Thrawn said. Truly, life on the _Chimaera_ without Vanto had been perfectly adequate: Thrawn would not tolerate a crew that fell apart when one of its members was removed, and thus the _Chimaera_ had continued operating almost without interruption during Vanto’s shore leave. Vanto, too, had taken extensive precautions to ensure that his absence would not cause any decrease in function.

Thrawn was simply used to his aide’s presence, and more comfortable now that Vanto had returned. It would be good to have his crew complete again, and there were several minor matters that he had been waiting to attend to until he could consult with Vanto.

Before he could bring them up, though, Vanto pulled a bag from under the chair and began taking objects out. “Brought some things to show you, sir,” he said. “I know you’re interested in art, and I thought you might like to see some Lysatran pieces.”

Thrawn had guessed what the bag contained as soon as Vanto had begun unpacking it, and moved towards the desk to stand at Vanto’s shoulder. Vanto shifted aside a few inches to give him a better view, and Thrawn took a moment to study the objects arrayed in front of him. All real, no holos in sight. Astonishing.

“Go ahead,” Vanto said. “None of it’s fragile, so you can’t do much damage.”

A dish, a small figurine, some sort of folded textile, a model starfighter of ambiguous make, a collection of datapads likely containing novels, a few unidentifiable objects. None—except for the textile—larger than his two fists, which seemed likely to indicate a humble, unpretentious culture, a people more focused on their own affairs and family lives then on achieving notoriety in the larger galaxy. Of course, this was a small sample, no thought put into its curation, but information was everywhere, there to be gleaned. Even the arrangement of the objects on the desk was valuable, the pattern full of clues.

“It’s not the most exciting stuff, I know,” Vanto said. He shrugged a little and his facial heat glowed briefly—an involuntary response that always intrigued Thrawn. “But the shuttle didn’t have a lot of luggage space, so I couldn’t bring anything bigger.”

Then again, Vanto’s family’s shipping company was known and respected in their sector of Wild Space and the Outer Rim. Notoriety was, of course, relative. Thrawn reached across Vanto to pick up the dish, and Vanto inhaled quietly but sharply, his chest filling to brush Thrawn’s forearm. Thrawn felt it even through two layers of uniform.

The dish was small, curved to fit comfortably in the hand, and rang with a clear tone when Thrawn tapped the rim with his fingernail. Holos were informational, of course, but so much more could be gathered when a piece could be examined with all the senses. Fine cracks, brown with age, ran here and there along the sides of the dish, breaking up the smooth green glaze. Well cared for and valuable, the dish was probably old. He said as much, and Vanto laughed.

“I don’t get to say this often, but you’ve missed a critical detail,” Vanto said. He flipped the dish over and showed Thrawn the SONIC DISHWASHER SAFE stamp on the convex side. “They come from a ceramic factory in the city where I grew up. My mother likes the green, so she has about forty of these, all factory seconds. I just borrowed one.” He held the dish up to the light and studied it as though for the first time. “Pretty, I guess. We ship out a lot of them because they’re so cheap to make it almost doesn’t matter if a few get broken in transit.” He shot Thrawn a sideways grin, conspiratorial, and Thrawn’s mouth twitched in response.

A practical people, the Lysatrans. Well, he’d already known that. Thrawn put the dish back on the table and picked up the figurine. On closer inspection, it appeared to represent a short, potbellied, humanoid with enormous ears and fluffy hair made of some kind of fur, wearing mechanic’s overalls and brandishing the Lysatran flag. It looked oddly threatening for a lump of synthcast that fit in his palm.

Thrawn was not inclined towards aesthetic judgments—art was useful because of the information that it could carry, not its beauty—but the little figurine was spectacularly ugly. Some vestige of that thought must have passed over his face, because Vanto laughed and took the figurine from his hand.

“Yeah, we all think they’re hideous too,” he said. “They’re supposed to be house sprites, sort of Lysatra’s mascot. No one takes them seriously, though. My father hides them around the house to surprise the guests. This one was in the ‘fresher, it scared the hell out of me.” Vanto turned the figurine over in his hand, looking thoughtful. “A lot of stories about them, though. Creepy ones, funny ones.”

“Like your stories of the Chiss.” The Lysatrans loved stories. In battle, it would be an advantage and a weakness. Their generals would use stories to inflame their armies, and the prospect of living on in legend would drive their warriors to great deeds. However, they ran the risk of relying too much on the strategies of past leaders and failing to adapt those strategies to the present engagement.

Vanto looked up at him, facial heat glowing again. “I suppose, sir,” he said. “Though even those vary a lot depending on who’s telling them. You remember the one I told you, about the Chiss prince and the farmer’s son who was cursed to transform into a sol-falcon at the full moon?”

“We are not capable of holding our breath underwater for that long.” It was a ridiculous story, but Vanto told it well. Thrawn had enjoyed listening.

“So you said, sir. Anyway, I’ve heard versions of that story where the prince doesn’t defeat the sorcerer at the end, or the thunderstorm is an earthquake instead, or it was Krastallin bandits the whole time. Just depending on the point the storyteller wanted to make, or the way the story was told to them.”

“And no one minds this?” The Chiss oral tradition was nearly sacred, transmitted from master to student so precisely that it contained accurate accounts of events thousands of years in the past. To hear that the same story could be told multiple ways was disconcerting.

“Well, I prefer the version where the sol-falcon doesn’t lose his tail feathers at the end, but I’m honestly a bit of a romantic,” Vanto said. He glanced up at Thrawn and his facial heat intensified. It truly was a fascinating reaction, occurring across multiple situational and emotional contexts and not appearing to correlate exactly with any of them. Embarrassment, anger, frustration...Thrawn had seen them all expressed in Vanto’s face and body. None seemed quite the right fit for the current situation, however.

He needed more data.

“I suppose it depends on the context,” Thrawn said. He reached across the table and picked up one of the objects he had been unable to immediately identify. He took a moment to examine it, curling his hand around its length, drawing his fingers across the bumps and ridges that adorned its oblong shape.

Beside him, Vanto exhaled as though surprised. “Almost everything does, sir,” he said, voice just a little shaky. If Thrawn hadn’t known him so well, he probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Thrawn hadn’t noticed how quiet his quarters were, nestled in the _Chimaera_ ’s belly far from the engines, before this moment, but now he heard each of Vanto’s breaths, each tiny movement of his skin against his uniform. Vanto’s body seemed to compress the air between them until it shimmered with heat. “And the context in which this particular piece belongs?” he asked.

Thrawn felt Vanto tense, then relax, as though their bodies were already touching. Vanto turned to face him, eyes crinkled with laughter. “It has ritual uses,” Vanto said.

“But it’s obviously a-”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” Thrawn said. He turned the object over in his hands, the bait in an irresistible trap. He’d walked into that trap open-eyed and couldn’t regret it. “I’m curious about these rituals. Commander Vanto. Eli. Would you demonstrate?”

“It would be my pleasure, Thrawn,” Eli said, and reached for him.

**Author's Note:**

> terrifying Lysatran house sprites based on Norwegian troll dolls, which I have seen way too many of.


End file.
